Why businessmen around the world are so superstitious

After teaching finance at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad for 20 years, V Raghunathan made the jump and became the President of ING Vysya Bank . Currently he is the CEO of GMR Varalakshmi Foundation . In the past he has been published as a cartoonist and even played chess at the national level. If all this wasn't enough he has been the author of bestselling books like Corruption Conundrum, Games Indians Play, and most recently, Ganesha on the Dashboard (co-authored with the late MA Eswaran). In an interview with CD, Raghunathan talks about fatalism, vastu and magical thinking.

How do you define superstition?

The general definition of superstition is 'belief without any rational causality in the physical world'. In other words, superstition is a belief that is not based on any verifiable facts. For example, the belief that a cat crossing one's path bodes ill for one is a superstition, since there can be no conceivable connection (or even observed correlation) between the cat crossing one's path and how one's affairs may or may not turn out subsequent to the event. That gifting an empty wallet brings ill luck to the receiver; or that a task initiated task during Rahu Kalam is bound for disaster; are all examples of superstitious beliefs.

Nobody is born superstitious. How do they become so?

One of the fundamental reasons is the innate insecurities of humans. People suffer from many insecurities, and are forever looking for ways to address them. Life is full of non-controllables and humans are forever trying to control the non-controllables. This is where superstition thrives. What is magical thinking? Superstition is clearly a learnt attribute. The learning is transmitted to human beings through the process of what the psychologists call magical thinking. For example, an infant laughs, and at the same moment sees a toy dangling above its head move - maybe on account of a gust of air - it then laughs again and again, while staring at the toy, in the apparent belief that its laughing will produce more movement. Psychologists call this magical thinking, because this behaviour of the child does not arise from any comprehension of or concern about the link between the cause and the sought-after effect. Even though a child learns more about the world by experience, investigation and direct learning, and gradually acquires more accurate understanding of causal relationships in the physical world, its brain remains vulnerable to magical thinking.

How superstitious are businessmen?

They have reasons to be more superstitious than the average. This is because given the very high stakes and the tremendous amount of uncertainties in the market, superstitions offer an illusion of gaining control over these uncertainties and give them an impression as if they have done all that is possible to ensure the best possible outcome. Businessmen in India are frequently given to such superstitions as numerology, visits to temples before big business deals, avoiding any important initiatives around eclipses, designing offices according to Vaastu, and so forth. Worldwide, the number 13 is considered spooky, but GD Birla was said to be uncomfortable with the number 12 because it reminded him of baarvi, or the 12th day of mourning, considered inauspicious by the Hindus. Post-independence, when GD Birla built the group's global headquarters in Kolkata, he chose not to have a 12th floor.

What about businessmen outside India?

Superstition is a worldwide phenomenon. Some 80% of the buildings worldwide are known to skip floor 13. Larry Ellison is said to have tweeted that there may not be an Oracle version 13. Superstition is known to impact businesses. It is said that marriage insurance in India is doomed to failure, because people don't want to think about marriages failing, because thinking it could make it happen. In Taiwan, consumers are willing to pay more for a package of three tennis balls than four, because in Mandarin, number four is considered ill-fated, as it has the same sound as 'dead'. Even in the US, 'paraskevidekatriaphobia' - the fear of Friday the 13th - is known to pull down revenues.

Is vastu just mumbo jumbo?

It may have had some rational underpinnings at one time, but now it's mumbo jumbo. For example, no one may argue that any architectural principle can be independent of wind direction, orientation of the sun, sea, rivers and weather conditions. But today, in a corporate building or a hotel which is 100% air-conditioned and no window is ever open, how relevant can the wind direction be? And to say that a fundamentally flawed architecture (according to vaastu) can be corrected by implanting a crystal on the floor here or a piece of copper on the wall there can only be ridiculous. To date, I have come across no serious scientific paper supporting vaastu.

What explains the lack of scientific temper in us?

It is to answer this question that we wrote the book. To answer very briefly, it is our fatalism and the complete lack of dialogue between Hinduism and Science. It may have been because the industrial revolution passed us by; alternatively, may be industrial revolution passed us by as much on account of Colonialism as on account of our fatalism; maybe our equilateral climate made our living so easy over the centuries that we never had to resort to science, scientific methods and scientific temper to make our lives any easier - it could be a combination of these reasons and many more.